A HISTORY OF WORCESTERSHIRE ponds, appearing to feed by preference on insects close over still water. It comes abroad quite late in the evening, some time after the pipistrelle has made its appearance, and may then be seen so close to the surface of the water of some pond or still reach of the river Avon that the reflection is undistin- guishable from the creature itself. The diurnal place of retirement is some old building, holes in trees so far as I know never being chosen. The belfry of the church at Stratford-on- Avon was formerly much frequented by this bat, and the late Sir W. H. Flower and the present writer obtained specimens there by swinging the bell ropes about just when the bats came out of crevices and were flying round the belfry. They were struck by the ropes and came to the floor. Dau- benton's bat may be distinguished from its allies, Natterer's bat and the whiskered bat, by its having the feet less fully enclosed in the wing-membrane. 9. Whiskered Bat. Myotis mystacinus, Leisler. Bell — FespertUio mystacinuj. There is no English bat which can more properly be styled an arboreal species than the present one, notwithstanding that it reposes during the day in buildings. At the present moment there is quite a large colony of whis- kered bats in the roof of the house of the writer at Littleton, from which place more than a hundred were seen to emerge one evening in July, I 899. They dropped out of a hole under the slates either singly or in twos or threes, and lost no time in getting into the top of a large walnut tree, through which they passed, and scattered oflF to other trees to feed amongst the branches. The flight of this bat may be de- scribed as quivering through and through the branches and amongst the leaves. You rarely, perhaps never, see a whiskered bat taking a backward and forward beat in a sheltered cor- ner, like the pipistrelle, the flight being almost always in trees and generally high up. INSECTIVORA 10. Hedgehog. Erinaceus europeeus, Linn. The hedgehog is so well known in the county as to demand little notice. It is how- ever becoming scarce in some parts of the county, partly because it is killed wherever it is met with, by labourers because it is supposed to suck cows, by keepers because it is known to suck eggs, and partly because under the conditions of modern farming the old wide hedges that used to furnish it with shelter are being swept away. It has its regular hunting ground and may be seen night after night to go out along a particular track, occasionally it travels a considerable distance. 11. Mole. Talpa europcea, Linn. The abundance or the reverse of the mole in any district depends entirely on the assi- duity of the mole-catcher, for when trapping is carried on industriously the creature is soon quickly reduced in numbers. It is the custom in some places in Worcestershire to pay the mole-catcher a specified sum per acre for its destruction. In the neighbourhood of Bengworth two varieties of this animal were at one time not infrequent, one of a pale cream colour and the other, which was much the rarer, of a dark ash colour. In the Vic- toria Museum, Worcester, are specimens of moles of various colours which have from time to time been caught in different parts of the county. 12. Common Shrew. Sorex aranem, Linn. A common and regularly distributed species over the whole of the county. 13. Pigmy Shrew. Sorex mtnutusy Pallas. Bell — Sorex pygmaui. This very small creature is much less abun- dant than the common shrew, to which it bears considerable resemblance except in size. It would be correct to say that for one instance of its occurrence twenty of the common shrew would be seen. It is found in the same sort of situations which are frequented by the common shrew. 14. Water Shrew. Neomys fodiens, Pallas. Bell — Crossopus fodiens. As its name implies, this is an aquatic creature, and is almost always found in the vicinity of water. The low-lying meadows by the side of the Avon, Severn and Teme are much frequented by the water shrew, and they are sometimes discovered when the scythe comes into use. Shallow rippling ditches and rills as well as brooks are favourite haunts, more especially such as have a gravelly bottom. It is said, and with truth, to eat the spawn of fish that it finds in such places, but it also finds beneath the stones the small crustacean Gammarus pulex, and the water shrew makes use of its long snout to turn over the stones and capture it. But such small creatures are not the exclusive diet of the water shrew, the present writer having once seen one escape from the dried-up body of a barn-door fowl lying in an outhouse. The shrew had eaten its way into the interior through the abdomen. On another occasion a common rat which had been caught and killed by the jaws of a 174
